Anonymous ID: 2fd5f5 Sept. 21, 2022, 2:25 p.m. No.17557554   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>7574

>>17557491

Plot exposed

 

Arnold and André finally met on September 21 at the Joshua Hett Smith House. On the morning of September 22, from their position at Teller's Point, two American rebels, John "Jack" Peterson and Moses Sherwood, under the command of Col. James Livingston fired on HMS Vulture, the ship that was intended to carry André back to New York.[92][93] This action did little damage besides giving the captain, Andrew Sutherland, a splinter in his nose—but the splinter prompted the Vulture to retreat,[94] forcing André to return to New York overland. Arnold wrote out passes for André so that he would be able to pass through the lines, and he also gave him plans for West Point.[95]

 

André was captured near Tarrytown, New York on Saturday, September 23 by three Westchester militiamen.[96] They found the papers exposing the plot to capture West Point and passed them on to their superiors,[97] but André convinced the unsuspecting Colonel John Jameson, to whom he was delivered, to send him back to Arnold at West Point—but he never reached West Point. Major Benjamin Tallmadge was a member of the Continental Army's Culper Ring, a network of spies established under Washington's orders,[98] and he insisted that Jameson order the prisoner to be intercepted and brought back. Jameson reluctantly recalled the lieutenant who had been delivering André into Arnold's custody, but he then sent the same lieutenant as a messenger to notify Arnold of André's arrest.[99]

 

Arnold learned of André's capture the morning of September 24 while waiting for Washington, with whom he was going to have breakfast at his headquarters in British Col. Beverley Robinson's former summer house on the east bank of the Hudson.[100][101] Upon receiving Jameson's message, however, he learned that Jameson had sent Washington the papers which André was carrying. Arnold immediately hastened to the shore and ordered bargemen to row him downriver to where HMS Vulture was anchored, fleeing on it to New York City.[102] From the ship, he wrote a letter to Washington[103] requesting that Peggy be given safe passage to her family in Philadelphia—which Washington granted.[104]

 

Washington remained calm when he was presented with evidence of Arnold's treason. He did, however, investigate its extent, and suggested that he was willing to exchange André for Arnold during negotiations with General Clinton concerning André's fate. Clinton refused this suggestion; after a military tribunal, André was hanged at Tappan, New York, on October 2. Washington also infiltrated men into New York City in an attempt to capture Arnold. This plan very nearly succeeded, but Arnold changed living quarters prior to sailing for Virginia in December and thus avoided capture.[105] He justified his actions in an open letter titled "To the Inhabitants of America", published in newspapers in October 1780.[106] He also wrote in the letter to Washington requesting safe passage for Peggy: "Love to my country actuates my present conduct, however it may appear inconsistent to the world, who very seldom judge right of any man's actions."[103]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Arnold